


He, She, It Didn't

by Kefalion



Series: The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 7 [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, saving a character who died in the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kefalion/pseuds/Kefalion
Summary: Amelia Bones was supposed to die in the summer of 1996. This story explores how events might have changed, to also change that outcome.





	He, She, It Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Tenth Round of the Seventh Season of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I'm writing as Chaser 2 for The Tutshill Tornados.
> 
> Name of the round: Kill Them or Save Them
> 
> We got to pick between eight characters. Half died during the war, and the other half survived. Our task this round was to reverse the fate of our chosen character.
> 
> I'm saving Amelia Bones
> 
> These are the prompts I'm using as a chaser to score some extra points.
> 
> 2\. (word) reflection  
5\. (dialogue) "Being reasonable is boring."  
8\. (quote) "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful."- Mary Shelley
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the world J.K. Rowling has created. It's all hers, from Diagon Alley to Hogwarts to all the people living there.
> 
> Thanks to my lovely team for betaing!

A week after Voldemort's return had become publicly accepted with his appearance in the Ministry of Magic, Madame Amelia Bones was in her office, working through the ridiculous piles of paperwork that were left in the wake of the breach. She looked up through her monocle as her office door slammed open and Alastor Moody marched inside.

"Why've you not increased security?" he barked.

She faced him levelly. "I have."

"Then how come I got inside your office?"

"Because you're keyed into the wards."

"That won't do. Don't you see that you'll be a target? You're one of the greatest obstacles You-Know-Who faces when he comes to take over the Ministry. You can leave no loopholes! They've taken my appearance before."

She gave him a hard look. "Are you about to let them do that again?"

Moody growled. "Not if I can help it. Those bastards won't get me alive again, but you know that's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"The point is that they'll use anyone they can get their dirty hands on. They'll threaten. They'll coerce. They'll use the Unforgivables and Polyjuice. They'll use any and all means at their disposal."

"You've only said things I already know."

"You don't act like it, and I'm here to make you act like it. You're fearless—too fearless—daring to do what others won't, questioning, being a thorn in the side of those who want to move in the shadows. Your attitude makes you powerful and You-Know-Who thinks he's the only one allowed to be powerful. You're making yourself a target."

Amelia leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Thank you so very much for your vote of confidence."

Moody glared, focusing both his eyes on Amelia. "If you insist on standing out, in making a challenge, you can't afford to be sloppy. You can't afford to be lenient. You can't afford to be trusting. You have to survive this war that's coming or the Ministry is sure to fall, and we both know that can't be allowed to happen. Now, what will you do?"

"I will get back to work. I, unlike some, have not retired."

"Bah!" He swatted the air. "I'm talking to a corpse. Stop being so damn reasonable! The political game doesn't matter. Allow them to think you're as paranoid as me if that's what it takes. Use your Foe Glass to more than look at your reflection. Banish any tosser who's suspicious from the Ministry. Don't play by the rules anymore. You can't afford it. Do you hear me, Amelia? You cannot afford it."

He stomped his way out of her office, the whole leg and the wooden one thumping at different pitches. _BANG-thud, BANG-thud, BANG-thud._

Amelia shook her head and did what she'd said she would—she got back to work. Moody had been brilliant once, but those days had passed. She had things under control.

—

She didn't have things under control.

When she got into the Ministry to start her workday later that week, someone had been through her office. The door was off its hinges. There was a hole large enough to walk through next to it. Rubble and dust coated the floor along with most of her furniture, which had been trashed, and all of her files. The shards of her Foe Glass had grown dull—the reflections in them inert of their enchantment. And as if that wasn't enough, her window was smashed, and the enchanted weather on the inside of it was a torrential downpour with gushes of storm winds that sent rain into the room, drenching every last part of her office.

The maintenance wizard had the gall to tell her that it was their fault.

"I went down to recast the enchantment last night," the maintenance wizard, Oliver Barrett, said, twisting his hands. "It's all routine. Do it every other month. Guess something went wrong this time."

Amelia stared him down.

"Very wrong," he squeaked, averting his gaze. "That's why the door's broken." He cowered in her opposing presence and winced out the words, "and the wall. I think I mispronounced the spell. I had a bad cough last night on account of—"

She cut him off. "You expect me to believe that this"—she gestured at her destroyed office—"was the result of an enchantment you failed to cast correctly? An enchantment you cast every other month in what I assume are all the large offices at the Ministry?"

Barrett squirmed. "Y-yes!" his voice went whisper-quiet to then rise to a shout in compensation. "Yes, that's what happened."

Amelia held in a sigh, and seeing Kingsley Shacklebolt entering the Department, she raised her voice. "Auror Shacklebolt, would you mind coming here a moment?"

Shacklebolt made his way towards them, and Barrett started backing off, drawing his wand. Shacklebolt disarmed him with a silent spell.

"That wasn't very wise," Shacklebolt said, restraining Barrett, and off to an interrogation room they went.

It turned out that Berrett had been telling the truth, if not the whole truth. He'd been threatened by some men whose faces he never saw, told that he should tamper with the enchantments, and if asked, take the whole blame for the disturbance.

"It has to be Death Eaters," Kingsley Shacklebolt said as he joined Amelia outside the interrogation room.

"It does, doesn't it?" Shoulders tight, lips pursed, she paused to think.

Moody had warned her. She hadn't wanted to listen. She'd been little more than a reflection of Fudge, wanting to think that things weren't quite so bad, that there was more time, that she had thought things through and was preparing at a pace and level that was sufficient, that she wasn't drawing that much attention to herself. But she had been vocal in her demands for change in the Minister's Office, had been unrelenting in pushing Rufus Scrimgeour into the position, not willing to accept a Minister who could be used as a puppet.

Amelia tapped her fingers against her arm. "We'll tighten security. Put up new wards. Perform controls of the personnel."

Shacklebolt frowned. "That'll draw on our resources—demand more resources than we have, even. Shouldn't we be out there hunting them?"

She shook her head. "There's little use in running around chasing them when they're already here. We need our backs clear. How infiltrated are our ranks? They've been given over a year to prepare in peace because the administration decided that the truth was inconvenient, and I had a similar lapse of judgment, which means that we'll all be working extra hours to make up for it."

Shacklebolt let out a put-upon sigh. "More late nights."

She snorted. "As if you're not a prime example of a workaholic. I'm sure you'll manage to do what is required all the while protecting the Muggle Prime Minister. Don't pretend like I don't know that you've already been using all your free time opposing Voldemort, while the rest of us pretended that everything was fine." She clasped his arm. "I trust you to have my back, more so than most people in this department. So little is certain, but I am sure of your commitment."

He straightened himself up to his full, impressive height. "I won't let you down."

—

He didn't let her down. Shacklebolt put her in contact with the Order of the Phoenix, and its members set up a guard schedule to see to her protection and the protection of her family. The Fidelius Charm was brought up as an alternative more than once, but it wasn't an option. She was a public figure and at times she had to entertain guests in her home, changing that routine would cost them too much, would show that she was afraid, would detrimentally impact her influence and her effort in the struggle against Voldemort.

Moody had been right. Her fearlessness was a double-edged sword, and she'd rather wield it as skillfully as possible, taking down as many enemies as possible before it inevitably managed to cut her.

—

It didn't take long for it to happen. And, of course, the sword cut deep.

The attack happened on a Sunday evening in mid-August when she'd invited her brother and his family to dinner. They were unprotected in the garden, enjoying the nice weather.

Amelia's brother was the first casualty. The Killing Curse got him. The first spell cast. Amelia looked him in the eye as all life was drained from them. Her little brother. The second brother she'd lost to this fight. First Edgar. Now Patrick. Shock held her stationary for a horrifying second, then she turned the fight two-sided. Patrick was the last family member she was going to let them take from her.

She sent stunners wildly around her, their beams unusually bright as her emotions made her fuel them with more magic than necessary, but her aim was true, and were it not for the skills of her opponents—Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort himself—they would have gone down.

The Order guard left, crying that she'd get help, and Amelia's sister-in-law and her niece joined her in the fray. Three on two, they should have been able to hold their ground, but Voldemort and his most loyal follower used magic no decent witch would ever touch, and their ruthlessness gave them the advantage. Some curse Amelia had never seen before hit her sister-in-law. Convulsions wracked her, and blood spewed from her lips. So much of it that it had to be fatal in minutes. Susan screamed and lost her senses. She ran at Bellatrix who sent first a cutting curse and then a bludgeoning curse at her. Susan's head snapped back, and she fell to the ground, dropping her wand, and remained down.

"Susan!" Amalia cried, but there was no time to take in that she was the last Bones standing.

She let go of all her inhibitions. The dark magic she'd spent all her life fighting, exploded from her wand. But now it was two against one, and she was fighting fire with fire. She had no way to win. She tried to play by their rules, but she wasn't experienced enough, and getting overwhelmed she had to fall back on what she knew best.

She held her ground through protection spells, unable to be offensive, and so Voldemort began to speak.

"Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I will kill you as I killed your parents, as I've had your brothers killed in my name. But your niece and her mother need not die." He glanced down at Susan where she lay with her limbs broken, blood running from her temple, and he smiled coldly.

Amelia glanced at Susan too.

"Oh, they're not dead," Voldemort said, "not yet. Stop fighting. Give up your life, and theirs shall be spared."

Amelia spat, concentrating too hard on her shield to form words, but intent on making her meaning known.

A snarl twisted Voldemort's face. "Be reasonable."

A light crack of Apparition sounded, and Amelia saw the reflection of Albus Dumbledore in the windows of her home. "Being reasonable is boring," she said and let go of her spell, readying herself to fight anew. "I don't fear you." She had help now. Dumbledore, the guard who'd gone for help, Shacklebolt, and Moody. The battle had turned, and it would not last much longer.

—

It didn't.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N 23rd August 2019:
> 
> Hope you liked it!


End file.
